News

Hip-hop heads were caught off guard when Eminem and Lil Wayne’s second collaboration lifted a sample from Haddaway’s ’93 dance hit “What is Love.”

Just how did the flamboyant track—a tune typically associated with a recurring Will Ferrell sketch on Saturday Night Live and the motion picture A Night At The Roxbury—become the latest single from Em’s Recovery LP? VIBE caught up with the song’s producer Just Blaze to find out.

“I made the beat in New York just off a whim. Double-O from Kidz In The Hall actually came up to me and was like ‘you trying to piss people off again?’,” Just tells VIBE of the song, which saw its music video drop yesterday. “The song was sitting on my hard drive for a few months.”

To avoid the risk of the beat leaking early, the hit maker paid both artists a visit to record their verses. “I went down to Miami and brought it to Wayne. We did his part together. He’s real laid back and just kind of on his own plane.” Just adds. “He went into the vocal booth for like an hour or two and had his rhyme.”

It took Marshall a small reminder to realize where the song’s flamboyant sample originated from. But with Just Blaze’s push Em wasted no time in turning the record into a smash.

“I gave him the framework of what the record could be about and a couple vocal ideas that I had for the hook. He knocked it out like two days later,” Just said, adding that the final touch came when he stepped from behind the board and into the booth. “After it was completed, I went back and added me singing the ‘No Love’ part.”

In other news, last night Just Blaze opened the doors to his newly renovated and expanded recording studio at StadiumRed in Harlem. —Mikey Fresh